This application claims the priority of Korean Patent Application No. 10-2003-0001828 filed on Jan. 11, 2003 in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a mobile robot, and system and method for autonomous navigation of the same, and more particularly to a mobile robot, and system and method for autonomous navigation of the same, in which the mobile robot controls the flickering of the light sources of a landmark array disposed in a working space and ascertains its position using one or more flicking light sources, thus enabling the autonomous navigation of the mobile robot.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, an autonomous mobile robot should precisely recognize its current pose and move from the current position to a target position (destination) in order to freely move across a certain area.
To this end, a certain landmark array is employed as a means for providing world coordinates to allow the mobile robot to recognize its current position. The mobile robot recognizes the landmark array disposed in a certain working space through the signal processing of an image captured by a camera and ascertains its current position using the recognized landmark array.
Such a landmark array may be designed in various patterns. Generally, a certain geometrical pattern, such as a circle and a chain, is employed as the form of the landmark array.
Accordingly, the mobile robot extracts the certain pattern of a landmark array from an image signal for a working space. In this case, the process of extracting the pattern of the landmark array from the image signal is greatly affected by external environmental factors, such as the illumination of a working space captured by a camera.
That is, the recognition of the pattern of a landmark array from an image captured by a camera is greatly affected by external factors such as illumination, the shapes of molded objects, the patterns of wallpaper, etc. Accordingly, the operation process of recognizing the pattern of the landmark array becomes further complicated.
Additionally, since relatively long processing time is required to recognize the position of the mobile robot using the landmark array due to the complicated operation process, it is difficult for autonomous navigation of the mobile robot to be performed in real-time.
Further, in a home network environment that has been developed and widely implemented, in which all home appliances are controlled by using a mobile robot, it is not desirable in terms of appearance to install a certain pattern of a landmark array in the interior of a house.
Accordingly, there have been demands for a mobile robot and system for autonomous navigation of the mobile robot that is capable of autonomous moving through the use of a landmark array applicable to a home network environment and suitable for application to actual life due to adaptability to the variations of an external environment, such as illumination.